154< HEMP. 



tion, are steeped more uniformly than if they were laid 

 therein horizontally. Moreover, this position renders 

 the work easier. 



The following, are the principal advantages which the 

 above mode of steeping offers : First, steeping can go 

 on all the year round, except during hard frosts, on ac- 

 count of the difficulty of drying the hemp afterwards. 

 Nevertheless, if wet-scutching be employed, the cold is 

 not an obstacle ; it is then only requisite to take the pre- 

 cautions necessary to keep the hemp from being frozen 

 while it remains wet. Secondly, as the duration of the 

 steeping-process is only two hours, the farmer insures. a 

 valuable economy of time, especially during the harvest 

 season. Thirdly, the labourer is relieved from all appre- 

 hension respecting his health ; all he has to do is to cause 

 a current of air to blow at the moment when the bundles 

 are plunged in and taken out of the routoir. The handfuls 

 of hemp, when they are afterwards laid out on the grass, 

 either in the form of stalks or fibre, do not send forth 

 any unpleasant odour, nor injure the purity of the air, 

 whatever quantity of hemp may be put to dry at once 

 upon the same spot. In order to expedite the operation 

 of steeping by the new method, in districts where hemp 

 is largely cultivated, instead of the portable routoir which 

 served to make the experiments with, the following ap- 

 paratus may be employed, composed of a cauldron, or 

 boiler, and four wooden tubs to serve as steeping- vessels : 

 after having heated the soapy water in the cauldron up to 

 the boiling-point, it is made to flow, by turning a cock, 

 into two of these steeping-tubs, which have been pre- 

 viously filled with hemp-stalks, and covered with a close- 

 fitting lid. While the steeping is going on in the first 

 two tubs, the requisite quantity of liquor is heated to fill 

 the other two, which in like manner are filled with 

 bundles of hemp, and covered with their respective lids. 

 By means of this simple apparatus, a very large amount 

 of hemp may be steeped daily without interruption. 

 .Fourthly, the expense of water-retting, compared with 

 that required by M. Bralle's method, is pretty nearly the 



